Good Morning Baltimore
by Valantha
Summary: Miles muses about how history will see his actions in the name of stability, protection, and unity in Baltimore. This is for the LJ 60 prompts in 60 days: Union


Author's Note – Set vaguely post-Unnecessary Good, but it's not needed to understand this fic.

Thank you to xyber116 for beta'ing this one-shot.

I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

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Perched on top of the non-ironically, completely historically, named Federal Hill, Miles looked over the remnants of the once famous (or infamous depending on whether your information source was The Wire, Hairspray, or Jeremy's history book) city of Baltimore.

Miles was resting on the decommissioned corpse of a Civil War cannon pointed squarely north, across the Inner Harbor, at the shattered and smoke-masked remains of banks, hotels, a world trade center – not _The_ World Trade Center, a world trade center – and an aquarium. The shards of once proud testaments to human ingenuity, greed, and curiosity. Most of the property damage was not, in fact, Miles' handiwork, nor for that matter, was the smoke. Though who knew if that was tale the history books would tell. Much of the former occurred during the first few days after The Blackout by either planes from the nearby Baltimore-Washington International Airport, or was the work of the terrified and angry populous. Much of the later was from the fierce and unruly remains of said populous trying to stay warm on this bitter March day.

At one point in time Baltimore, and Baltimore's Inner Harbor, was the industrial and shipping center of the mid-Atlantic. During the Civil War it was the third largest city in the Union, and was strongly secessionist. Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of _habeas corpus,_ declared martial law, and garrisoned Union troops on this very hill overlooking the harbor. The Union used Federal Hill to hold the city – and some of its most prominent citizens – hostage. Though Jeremy's history book said that the citizens were actually held in a War of 1812 fort-turned-prison called Fort McHenry.

The fact that his high school history class – had he actually stayed awake during it – completely ignored the fact that the heroic Abraham Lincoln discarded civil liberties left, right, and center and even caused "as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed,"* was actually a bit of a relief to Miles. Perhaps in a hundred years, General Matheson, the Butcher of Baltimore's reputation would also be whitewashed. Maybe people would forget the distasteful things he had done here in the name of stability, protection, and unity. Maybe history would tell the tale of two men trying to bring order out of chaos, of two men who used sometimes-repugnant means to achieve a worthy goal.

Miles pushed off the cannon and paced around the massive man-fortified hill, the sound of his Militiamen rebuilding the Federal Hill Fort ringing in his ears. At the base of the three- or four-story hill sat the storm-wracked remains of a science center, a tiny hobbyist port, and an art museum. To the east, past the scorched skeletons of condominiums and a giant Domino Sugar sign hanging at a 45-degree angle, he could see the corpses of freighters and cruise liners floating akimbo in the more industrial harbor. Was it called the outer harbor? Miles would have to ask one of the few defectors from the "Baltimore Empire."

To the south, the hill and earthen berms abated, and the first cement-and-rebar wall of the rebuilt fort abutted the now much destroyed neighborhood of Federal Hill. _That_ was mostly his fault.

To the west, Miles saw patches of fortified row houses, many with fortified and armed roof decks at near the same level as the hill. Every now and then, a bullet would come whizzing from a roof deck towards his Militiamen, and spotters would try to pinpoint the location. Past the charred skeletons of a few massive hotels, Miles could see M+T Stadium, the home of The Ravens, Camden Yards, the home of the Orioles, and the Baltimore Convention Center.

From the sound of things as he passed M+T Stadium several days ago, it still was home to ravens, or crows at least. He had heard tell that the some of the Baltimore Slavers had tried to bury their militia-killed compatriots in the stadium, but the Astroturf and the fact that there were locker and utilities rooms underneath meant that the bodies couldn't _actually_ be buried. Miles had a feeling that the Slavers were trying to stink them out. Or get them sick. A clean water source was a bit of an issue. An issue Jeremy's history book didn't think to mention.

Miles returned to the relative safety of the partly built fort, certain he was giving both Bass and Nora conniptions. He was right. Bass straightforwardly told him he was a stupid dick, and Nora just gave him an oddly hurt look. Their relationship was too new for her to tell him was she truly felt, but he knew she was annoyed that he was taking risks he didn't allow her to take. After the Baltimore Empire blew up the US Highway 1 Bridge over the Gunpowder River with half of Miles' convoy of 2,000 Militiamen on it, and after Nora kissed him in front of the survivors, Miles didn't want to lose her.

Miles had turned tail back to Philly to get reinforcements. Uncharacteristically, Jeremy Baker had a great idea to use the history books as a jumping-off point for tricks on squashing rebellion in the Baltimore Empire vassal state. Somewhere in the empty – no, TV-filled – head of his had been the slimmest glimmer of a remembering of an earlier Baltimore rebellion. And the history book had been great – the idea of turning Federal Hill and Fort McHenry into two of the three main Militia Garrisons had come directly from the history book. Miles was also going to go with Patterson Park as another, but after seeing the 5th Regiment Armory – and the unruly citizens of northern Baltimore – Miles had changed his mind.

He had evicted the current residents – as well as rats, feral cats, and cockroaches – and made the fortress-like former National Guard Armory into the Militia's main Baltimore base of operations. He really liked the look of the green buttresses, parapets, and crenellations, very medieval, and useful too. He wished he, and namely Nora, could remain there, but he needed Nora in the semi-built fort to work on fixing – and then using – their salvaged cannons. If they had bigger guns, they could blast down houses, terrify the populous into laying down arms, all without having to wage a bloody war of attrition. It did work for Ulysses S. Grant, but Miles didn't want all that blood on his hands. He wanted the Republic to be born without the stain of a lot of bloodshed.

Miles ignored Nora for the time being – she was working on a paint-encrusted cannon stolen from a museum – and stomped into his unmarked tent, no need to make it easy on the Baltimorean sharpshooters. He threw himself down on his cot and wished, for the millionth time, that he wasn't the one to have to figure this shit out and unify these barbaric tribes or "Empires" into a civilized Republic, but if no one else was gonna do it right, then he and Bass just would.

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* Francis Scott Key, _Fourteen Months in the American Bastilles_, 1863

- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)


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